Microfluidic devices and systems comprising such devices employ small capillaries or microchannels or cuvettes associated or even integrated with a solid substrate to perform a variety of operations in analytical chemical and biochemical applications on a very small scale. The small size of these systems allows for increased reaction rates that use less reagent volume and that take up far less laboratory or industrial space. Microfluidic systems thus offer the potential for attractive efficiency gains, and consequently, substantial economic advantages.
A variety of spectroscopic techniques can be employed in conjunction with microfluidic devices, including those utilizing infrared (IR) radiation, visible light, and/or ultraviolet (UV) radiation, and light-scattering spectroscopy, for example. In research or industrial settings, microfluidic devices are typically employed in biochemical or cell-based assays that use spectroscopic detection systems to quantify labeled or unlabeled molecules of interest. Microfluidic devices generally employ networks of integrated microscale channels and reservoirs with the use of which fluid samples materials are transported, mixed, separated and detected, and various optical systems that are embedded or externally arranged for recognition, detection, quantification, as well as other manipulations of the fluidic samples.
There exists a need in expansion of assay menu capacity of a microfluidic photometric system that would manifest in reduction of volume of a liquid sample required for the measurement and improving the accuracy and precision of the photometric measurement. Point of care integrated blood analysis instruments and environmental monitoring instruments are but two examples of devices that would benefit from such expansion.